


Another World

by Shujinkakusama



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Cover Art, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drabble, Drugged Tea, F/F, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, no order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-10-09 20:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10421388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shujinkakusama/pseuds/Shujinkakusama
Summary: Going to try tossing together some drabbles for an angels/demons AU in here. No real timeline, lots of characters, will try to include art for some chapters.1) Garnet/Pearl - Pearl's wings are growing in. She's not having a good time.2) Garnet/Pearl - Garnet and Pearl meet as children. Pearl wastes no time deciding Garnet is her best friend.3) Garnet/Pearl - Garnet's wings grow in the summer before Pearl's. She doesn't have a good time, either.4) Garnet/Pearl - Garnet's precognition abilities tell her good things, sometimes. Sometimes they're just overwhelming.5) Garnet/Pearl - In which Garnet and Pearl share a bed, and it's Totally Not Weird.6) Amethyst/Pearl/Garnet - In which Amethyst slides in nicely, and Ruby has the upper hand.7) Garnet/Pearl - Amethyst sleeps through Pearl's confession. The plot thickens!





	1. Garnet/Pearl

 

Pearl’s wings grew in during an exceptionally hot summer, blistering and dry and miserable. She spent the bulk of it at Garnet’s house, huddled in her best friend’s bed and trying to resist the urge to tear apart a cushion from her chaise. The guardian angel hadn’t ever expected that it would itch and burn, or that her feathers would prickle her back like pins and needles, or even that getting used to sleeping on her stomach would be harder than enduring the pain that woke her as fresh pinfeathers broke the skin. Garnet caught her trying to pick at the worst offenders, feathers that hadn’t yet broken the skin, but pushed and curled back in on themselves, and the Halfling stayed her hands and let her cry into her shoulder.

 

“How do you _do_ this?” Pearl moaned, chewing the inside of her cheek to distract herself from the incessant burning in her back. “Garnet, how did you get through this last year…?”

 

Garnet didn’t laugh, but she smiled, and she smoothed Pearl’s soft pink hair down with one hand. “I knew you’d cry if I told you how bad it hurt,” she murmured, “At least your feathers are coming in right. Mom thinks it’ll be a month, for you.”

 

Pearl groaned. A month meant several weeks of _this_. “I can’t do this,” she whimpered, “Garnet, I can’t, it hurts, and I can’t sleep—“

 

“I’ll be with you,” Garnet assured her, “Night and day if you need it.”

 

Pearl knew her best friend meant it. She wiped her eyes, and hugged the other girl with all the force her aching shoulders could muster. It wasn’t much. Garnet’s toned arms wound around her waist, and she folded her much bigger wings around the both of them. In the relative safety of Garnet’s leathery wings, sparsely covered with pink and blue patches of feathers that had grown in a little funny, it was hard to think of how much her own hurt. The guardian angel tucked her face against Garnet’s neck.

 

“A month, really?”

 

“Mm-hum.”

 

“I’m not leaving your room.”

 

Garnet giggled at the tickle of Pearl’s breath against her neck, even though she didn’t mean to. “Mom will definitely drag you out for dinner,” she pointed out, “You can’t skip meals for a _month_.”

 

“I can’t put a shirt on!”

 

“They’ve _bathed_ you, Pearl,” Garnet laughed, tipping her head back a little against the headboard of her bed. “They’ve seen you naked. All the way up to last summer, when you started caring about modesty.”


	2. Garnet / Pearl - First Impression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet and Pearl meet in kindergarten.

When the war ended, integrating survivors of both sides became paramount. It had been millennia since angels and demons had cohabited, but with much of Heaven and Hell wasted beyond repair, Purgatory was the only logical place to relocate. Enma-chou acted as a mirror of the human world, and had been kept out of the battle by chance.

 

Society began again, and not entirely smoothly.

 

New neighbors were assigned almost at random; high demons that had lost their homes in Hell now lived alongside guardian angels and cherubs alike. The truce was uncomfortable and tensions ran high even in areas populated by noncombatants.

 

Sapphire was a high angel, originally one of the Blue Queen’s confidantes. She was all seeing and might have predicted the Pink Queen’s fate, if she hadn’t fallen in love with a lowly foot soldier, Ruby, who had never seen anyone so beautiful. In turn, Sapphire had never expected to meet anyone as unpredictable as Ruby. Love was funny that way. They absconded into Purgatory together, knowing that their love was forbidden, that no one would accept their truce. Their relationship could not have been more taboo.

 

And their child even more so.

 

Garnet was everything her parents loved about each other, wound together by magic, into a single entity. She had Ruby’s tight curls in her hair and the vivid brightness in her eyes that Sapphire’s did. Her hair was a brilliant mishmash of pink and blue ringlets that sometimes shone like her mother’s feathers, and Sapphire expected great things from her.

 

With the new laws in place, with a truce protecting their daughter, Ruby and Sapphire could return to society. Garnet was barely a toddler, but they lied about her age. Of course she had been born _after_ the war. Of course Sapphire hadn’t broken any laws wittingly. Of course Ruby hadn’t been the one to suggest it.

 

Garnet was big for a child, and Sapphire laughed and warned Ruby that she would be taller than both of them before her wings grew in. Ruby didn’t doubt it; her lover was very rarely wrong. She teased Sapphire that it wouldn’t take much to be taller than either of them; they were both short.

 

Kindergarten was an idea borrowed from humans, but one that seemed natural if future generations were going to interact and work together. Children—angels and demons alike—had no wings, had no reason to suspect that extra eyes or arms or tails were indicative of anything important. Small children saw past such differences, the elders reasoned, and as such Garnet was slipped into school alongside other younglings close to her age.

 

And there she met Pearl.

 

Pearl was a rail of a girl, with bright blue eyes and pink hair, and a gemstone centered in her forehead. Garnet could feel her staring from across the room and tried to close her third eye, tried to ignore it. She was shy; she hadn’t played with many other children before, and her garishly bright hair made her stand out.

 

Of course Pearl stared. Pearl could probably tell she was weird. Maybe she knew, the way the teachers did, that she wasn’t just gangly. Garnet sometimes opened her mouth to ask a question and answered someone else’s, anticipating the teacher’s response. She didn’t know what to do about that, but she knew it was _weird_.

 

She didn’t have to look to see Pearl coming toward her. It was like a ripple on water, splashing against the back of her neck. Pearl sparkled a little, like glitter, but nothing like her mother. Garnet knew she must have been an angel, and that scared her, just a little. Angels weren’t all kind like her mother, especially the ones from Heaven. Her mom had warned her, when Sapphire couldn’t hear, that she might have trouble with other children. Ruby’s solution was to use her fists, but Garnet looked down at the blue and red stones in her hands and couldn’t imagine punching someone she didn’t know.

 

When the smaller girl stood next to her desk without a word, Garnet knew she would have to acknowledge her. She didn’t know what to say, or do, but she turned to find wide blue eyes staring at her, too close for comfort. “Um…”

 

“You have three eyes,” Pearl pointed out, and Garnet’s gaze dropped. She scrunched her third eye shut. She knew it; her _weird_ features were going to get her picked on. Her mom was right. She shook her head and tried not to cry out of any of them.

 

“They’re pretty,” Pearl said next, and Garnet hadn’t expected that, but when she whipped her head up, the other girl was smiling sweetly. “I like your hair, too.”

 

“Oh.” Garnet didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t know why it made her heart flutter, or why Pearl looked so pleased with her reaction, especially when she was sure that she was messing this up, somehow.

 

“I wanna be friends,” Pearl sounded sure, as if it were already decided, and Garnet wondered if she could see the future the way her mother could. Maybe all angels could do that.

 

Still, she didn’t know what to say. For the first time, her future vision wasn’t helping, wasn’t even providing an _idea_ of where to go from here. She didn’t know what to do.

 

“I’m weird,” Garnet said somewhat defensively, looking down at her desk. “I say things at the wrong time and I get mixed up and I know stuff I shouldn’t.”

 

Pearl’s bright blue eyes shone with excitement. “I really wanna be friends!”

 

Garnet stared for a long moment, confused and surprised, and she finally nodded very slowly. “Okay. We can be friends, Pearl,” she mumbled, and she was _doubly_ surprised when Pearl squealed and hugged her.

 

“My first friend!” Pearl exclaimed, “I love you!”

 

Garnet wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but she hugged her back and tried not to cry.

 

It was the start of something new and beautiful, something that would change everything for the both of them. Pearl visited her house often, and Garnet returned the favor. Pearl was weird, too, and Garnet quickly learned that she wouldn’t trade that for normalcy.


	3. Garnet / Pearl - First Stanza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet's wings grow in the summer before Pearl's. She doesn't have a good time of it.

When Garnet’s wings grew in, she locked herself in her room for days. The experience was agonizing; they were large and ungainly, almost immediately too heavy for her to stand comfortably without toppling backwards. And they grew in _fast_. She found refuse in her loft, hung upside down like a bat. Her new tail made that easy; she could wrap it around the crossbeam and tuck her knees over the smooth wood and just let her oversized wings creep in painfully. She had to sit up to cry, but at least no one could see. Her mother brought her dinner and told her that by the end of the summer, at least, the pain would have subsided. Her wings would be big, and beautiful, and _hers_ and Garnet didn’t believe her.

 

She was lonely, but she was equal parts ashamed. She felt ugly. Ungainly. Her wings were massive—too massive—and feathers tried to poke out of her leathery skin, bloody and pink and blue. She bruised easily. Garnet couldn’t sleep for days, and finally had to take a potion to get any rest at all.

 

Sapphire warned her that she would soon want to clean her room; that she couldn’t stay inside forever. Ruby was more sympathetic—she was the one who provided the sleeping draught, after all.

 

But summer was nearing a close when Sapphire tried to order her daughter to come downstairs one day, and Garnet wailed that she wasn’t hungry. The angel knew she would, but she offered all the same, and then, in a louder-than-necessary voice that was almost uncharacteristic of Sapphire, she said:

 

“Go right up, Pearl!”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh no._

 

Garnet tried to scramble down from her perch, but her tail tangled, and her too-big wings wouldn’t cooperate. She managed to get on _top_ of the beam, at least, only for Pearl to open her door before she could even attempt to escape out her window. So instead, she did the only thing she could think of; she wrapped her wings around her long limbs and just _hid_.

 

Like that would make Pearl go away.

 

“Garnet!” Pearl gasped, eyes wide, and the little guardian hurried toward her friend—far higher than she could reach, and without wings, Pearl couldn’t very well get to her. “Garnet your wings—“

 

“Go away!” Garnet practically wailed, “They’re ugly!”

 

Wide blue eyes stared for several seconds, and Garnet couldn’t see the determination in Pearl’s gaze. Neither could she see her best friend scour around the room, finally settling her sights on Garnet’s desk chair. “I’m coming up there,” Pearl declared, and Garnet said nothing, because Pearl hadn’t denied that her wings were ugly.

 

Her hair had gotten darker over the summer. Pink and blue bled together into a dark, deep purple, and she’s gotten gangly and lanky, with knobby knees and too little strength to support her new wings.

 

She could hear shuffling, then the squeak of her chair along the floor, and she peeked out to see Pearl struggling to drag it along under her. Pearl was dainty and small, with pink hair and blue eyes (“We match!” she remembered Pearl saying as a child, and now they _didn’t_ ) and a lovely candy pink aura. Garnet had always known she was different, but she didn’t _like_ it. She wanted to be like Pearl. She wanted nothing to do with wings or a tail—even her mom had no tail!—and as Pearl mounted the chair to get to her, Garnet shuffled away on the beam.

 

“I’m going to get to you!” Pearl insisted, and it was the least threatening declaration Garnet had ever heard. When Pearl tried to jump for the beam, she missed, and landed hard on the floor with an undignified yelp.

 

“Don’t hurt yourself!”

 

“Then get _down_!” Pearl stood, rubbing her backside and shoving the chair closer to Garnet. “I want to see you! It’s been two months, I couldn't even send you _letters_ , and you’re gonna just—hide from me, just because your wings are different?”

 

“They’re ugly!”

 

“I don’t care what they look like!” Pearl insisted, making another jump—and this time, by luck or by a miracle, she managed to clasp the beam with one hand. Apparently, camp had paid off in _some_ respects. Garnet watched worriedly as Pearl swung herself back and forth until she could get a leg over the beam, and Garnet knew that she couldn’t escape now. “You’re my best friend, and I’m gonna see you whether you like it or not!”

 

A week later, Garnet had successfully been coaxed out of hiding in her room. She tried not to cry in front of Pearl, but Pearl sometimes caught her sniffling at night. She slept under Garnet’s big wings, leathery and hot, like a winter blanket, and Ruby showed her how to apply oil to make them hurt less. Sapphire explained that Garnet’s skin was thicker, and her pinfeathers would have less trouble coming in, if she had them. Pearl insisted that Garnet’s new splash of pink and blue on her new wings was lovely, and she helped her get up and down the stairs for meals.


	4. Garnet / Pearl - Spoilers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garnet's precognition abilities tell her good things, sometimes. Sometimes they're just overwhelming.

Garnet’s precognition abilities peaked not long after her wings grew in. She had always had a knack for guessing outcomes and possibilities—Pearl couldn’t count the number of times her best friend had announced that she was due home before her guardians arrived. But now came _visions_ like her mother had, and Pearl watched as her eyes lit up and tracked things that weren’t there. Garnet would freeze up, and the strange static electric burn that coursed through her grew to a fever pitch and shocked Pearl’s delicate fingers when she touched her arm to draw her back to reality.

 

It didn’t work, more often than not; Pearl just wound up with her hair sticking out at odd ends and her fingers tingling somewhat unpleasantly while Garnet stayed rooted to the spot.

 

Garnet sometimes cried over the intensity of her visions. They were strange and frightening; sometimes about people she didn’t know. A demon with vermillion stripes that fought the Corrupted; an imp—Garnet wasn’t sure she was an imp!—with green eyes and skin who danced with glee at destruction she’d wrought; an _old_ angel with glassy eyes whose wings weren’t quite as large as hers, but were too large for her dainty frame, dripping with water wherever she walk; an even older angel with six arms that breathed fire and looked like she belonged in Hell.

 

And a child, pink-skinned with dark hair and a blinding aura, who must have been _human_ , and that was terrifying above all else.

 

Humans weren’t welcome in Purgatory. Humans were chaotic the way demons were, but without any higher power to answer to. They made rules like angels did, and followed them in ways that made no sense. _Kill not_ —unless your neighbor doesn’t believe. _Hate no one_ —except your enemies. They were a reminder of the war. They were proof that angels and demons, at least, had one thing in common.

 

By the time Pearl’s wings had grown in the following summer, Garnet wasn’t as afraid of her powers. Sapphire helped. Ruby made suggestions that didn’t go far. Pearl was at her side as much as she could be, and she insisted that she liked the electric tingle.

 

Garnet didn’t know if that was a lie. But Pearl was at her side as often as she could be, and she didn’t let go when she froze in place to see what might’ve been. Pearl stroked the back of her hand with her thumb and leaned into her shoulder, and Garnet sometimes had the presence of mind to wrap her wings around her best friend. It made the static worse, but it saved her from questioning if they were in public.

 

“We’re going to meet someone.”

 

It was an abrupt realization, and Pearl reached out to brush Garnet’s wild, curly hair away from her face so she could dry her eyes for her. She looked a wreck and knew it, but at least she hadn’t started crying in the middle of the sidewalk.

 

“Someone is a _very_ vague description,” Pearl teased, “We’re in public, Garnet, we meet a lot of people.”

 

“She’s going to stay,” Garnet said, and Pearl looked perplexed before frowning.

 

“Nobody stays,” the little angel said, brows furrowed up to the gem in the middle of her forehead. “I—Garnet, nobody ever stays with us.”

 

Garnet managed a smile that Pearl privately thought was so beautiful that it could’ve made _anyone_ stay, but somehow, the duo had always been just that—no one stayed. Still, the upturn of full lips made her heart pound, and Pearl pressed her face into Garnet’s shoulder to hide her flush.

 

“You’ll like her,” Garnet said, “Er… eventually.”

 

“That doesn’t sound promising at _all_.”

 

They walked slowly, an interesting pair to behold. Garnet’s wings had to remain tucked close to them so as not to span beyond the sidewalk, and Pearl’s wings were embarrassingly small for a guardian angel’s. She tucked them against her back and curled into Garnet’s hold, and they walked together like nothing was more natural.

 

Pearl couldn’t imagine someone else joining them.

 

And yet, moments later, Garnet swept Pearl aside into an alcove as a purple-haired girl zipped by—a demon, by the looks of her stubby wings and hoofed feet—and Pearl felt the pull. It wasn’t like with Garnet, when they were children. But it was there, and she knew, too, that the wild child scampering past would be part of their lives.

 

Garnet chuckled, close to Pearl’s ear, and gave her shoulder a soft squeeze. “We should probably go get her,” she said, “She’s going to run into Miss Agate, and you know how well _that_ will go.”

 

Miss Agate was an angel who should have fallen long ago, and Pearl wrinkled her nose in distaste. “We’d better save her from the whip,” she grumbled. Garnet laughed, and followed Pearl back down the sidewalk. Amethyst would surely thank them for their intervention, and no matter how _weird_ it would be to be a set of three, rather than a pair, Garnet was certain that the futures down this path were good ones.


	5. 5) GarnetxPearl - Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Garnet and Pearl are closer than friendship dictates, and share a bed without it getting weird.

Pearl often slept in Garnet’s bed with her. Sapphire had long anticipated this might be the case, and Garnet’s bed was more than large enough for a slip of an angel to sneak in at night—not that Sapphire ever _didn’t_ know. There was always breakfast in the morning, always a place for her at the table, and Ruby was usually surprised by her partner’s quick thinking.

 

Not that Pearl’s home was less welcoming, in theory, but the windows were much smaller, and Garnet’s wings were too big. Actually, having finally finished growing in, they were too big for her _own_ window—which probably wasn’t an oversight in design, really. Pearl could fly in easily, but even Sapphire would be hard pressed to unfurl her wings at the second story window. Garnet stood no chance.

 

Tonight, Pearl’s family was out of town, and as so often happened, she popped her head over the edge of Garnet’s window frame, tapping with one hand to be let in. The other clutched ivy desperately, even though her small wings beat evenly and would have kept her from falling too far if she lost her grip. “Garnet?” she asked hopefully, peering into the semi-darkness of her bedroom. Sunset had been hours earlier, but that didn’t _necessarily_ mean Garnet was asleep or unavailable. “Are you up?”

 

Garnet’s future vision wasn’t like her mother’s, but she knew Pearl well enough to expect her; at home, Pearl slept in the same room as her two older sisters, who already had their Earthly assignments and frequently vanished for days at a time, and Garnet knew that Pearl got lonely. Having her entire family deliberately elsewhere practically guaranteed the angel would be outside her window come nightfall.

 

So she was ready, with snacks and iced tea, and a freshly made bed that Pearl would appreciate even if it wouldn’t stay that way. Garnet opened the windows inward, leaning out to offer Pearl a hand up, which the guardian angel gladly took. Pearl’s wings were small for her class, and she made up for some of that awkwardness with frantic wing beats that sometimes left her short on breath. Garnet hauled her in without visible effort and tugged her best friend in for a hug.

 

“I’m sweaty and gross,” Pearl protested mildly, slipping her arms around Garnet’s midsection gingerly, below the leathery skin that connected her wings to her back. Her hands settled just above Garnet’s tail, and the bigger girl’s laugh reverberated through Pearl’s tiny frame.

 

“Mom’s taking a bath, or I’d offer,” Garnet said, threading her fingers through Pearl’s short hair all the same. Pearl was rapidly taking after her sisters, worrying about appearances and other things Garnet found inconsequential—sweaty just meant she smelled a little more like honey than usual, and Garnet liked the scent.

 

Garnet was pretty sure she’d rather die than fess up to _that_ , though.

 

Instead, she reluctantly released her in favor of shutting the windows. Pearl tried in vain to smooth her hair into something that didn’t look like she’d just flown around the block after curfew. “You’re later than usual,” Garnet said idly, “I mean, it’s not _that_ late, but usually…”

 

“Miss Agate was checking on me,” Pearl said sourly, and Garnet wondered _which_ of the Agate sisters she meant—but it didn’t matter, because they were all equally aggravating. Pearl went on; “Apparently someone’s been sneaking around after dark, and since everyone else in my family has an assignment, she thought I wouldn’t be home, so the light being on must’ve been a hoodlum breaking in.”

 

Despite herself, Garnet laughed outright, catching Pearl’s hand and giving her fingers an affectionate squeeze. “That’s _you_ , Pearl. You sneak around after dark. Nobody else in our neighborhood sneaks out.”

 

“I’m not a hoodlum!”

 

Garnet snickered, tugging Pearl over to her bed and plopping down first, causing the entire thing to creak and moan; her growth spurt and the added weight of her ungainly wings weren’t kind to the bed, which would have been large by an angel’s standards, but which Garnet could easily sprawl across. She flashed a toothy grin at Pearl as she hopped up next to her, and Pearl was all too easy to drape a wing around.

 

Garnet dwarfed Pearl in every possible way, even down to her bigger hands, and Pearl marveled at the elemental stones in her best friend’s palms when they weren’t hidden by gloves. Pearl leaned into her side, gripped her hand, and pouted, mumbling something about how stupid curfew was to begin with.

 

“You sound more like a demon than I do,” Garnet teased, “You break rules every chance you get.”

 

“You would too, if it wouldn’t get your moms in trouble!” Pearl protested, earning more laughter, and though it was at her expense, she loved to hear it. Garnet was cagey and guarded in public, but when it was just the two of them like this, she was vibrant and beautiful, and Pearl could never get enough of her. She pouted dramatically, tucking her wings behind her, and crossed her arms.

 

“True; but you do it anyway,” Garnet pointed out, slipping her arms around Pearl’s waist. It was a lot harder to get away with _anything_ when she towered over virtually every angel or demon in their sector. Garnet ducked through doorways at the academy and had to stand during assemblies, and she wasn’t thrilled about it.

 

The bristle of Pearl’s wings softened almost visibly when Garnet hugged her, and she sighed, closing her eyes. Garnet hummed faintly behind her, rested her chin atop Pearl’s head, and it was hard to feel gross with Garnet wrapped around her like this.

 

“I made the tea you like,” Garnet said at length, even though she knew it would mean letting Pearl go. “And we have cookies.”

 

Pearl perked up at the idea, and slipped back off of the bed to fetch cups for each of them, even knowing that Garnet would have done it for her.

 

“It’s _my_ house,” Garnet protested, but that was part of the routine, and Pearl merrily ignored her while she arranged cookies on the plates Garnet had laid out, then poured drinks for both of them. Garnet watched as her best friend managed to carry them all back to her without spilling a drop; Pearl was remarkably graceful on her feet. Less so in the air.

 

But that was just a matter of practice. Small though her cotton candy pink wings were, Pearl at least had _normal_ wings. Garnet had feathery patches that barely broke the skin, webbed wings like Ruby’s, but impossibly oversized like Sapphire’s. She could fly, but it took enormous effort to actually get off of the ground. Gliding came easier.

 

Garnet watched Pearl move, dainty and small and beautiful and nothing like her mother, but more like Sapphire than she ever thought she could be. Pearl dipped her head in a bow, and her halo shone like the sun, and Garnet almost wanted to applaud. Instead, she relieved her of her burden and hid a flustered smile behind her glass of raspberry iced tea. “You don’t need to bring me things,” she said, and Pearl shrugged so lightly that her feathers barely rustled. “You’re my _guest_ , Pearl.”

 

“I like doing it, if it’s for you,” Pearl said, rejoining her best friend on the bed. She didn’t see the way Garnet’s eyes widened, but that was probably for the best; Garnet didn’t want to explain her embarrassment, even if Pearl was very, very likely to react positively.

 

They chatted while they ate, although Pearl barely finished half of her cookies. Garnet tried to coax her into eating more, but the angel protested, and agreed instead to a second glass of iced tea. This time, Garnet fetched it for her.

 

It was hours later that Ruby tapped on the door, peeked in, and told the girls to go to sleep, completely nonplused that Pearl was there, borrowing one of Garnet’s too-large shirts after spilling tea on her own blouse. Garnet teased her best friend for getting her in trouble, and warned Pearl that they probably _should_ get to sleep if they wanted to be up early enough for crepes in the morning.

 

Pearl used Garnet’s wings instead of a blanket, if only to avoid the heat, and Garnet didn’t blame her. But she did find it curious that Pearl curled against her side and pressed close enough to feel her heartbeat, only to complain about the heat moments later. Pearl’s solution was to abandon her leggings and socks, and Garnet teased her that she was indecent.

 

“It’s _different_ if it’s with you,” Pearl insisted, slipping cool hands under the back of Garnet’s halter top and cuddling closer than either of them could justify. Instead, both girls pretended not to notice, and neither fell asleep for a long time.


	6. Polygems - Sleepy Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst fits in nicely.

Amethyst folded into Garnet and Pearl’s daily lives with so little effort that it was hard to imagine she’d ever been a stranger. There were moments, of course, where the little demon had to loudly demand context for in jokes and stories she hadn’t been present for, but on the whole, she fit in with the angel and Halfling very nicely. She ran more often than she flew, mostly because her wings were torn to shreds from who-knew-what disasters she’d gotten into _before_ having two older, wiser friends to look after her, but she hitched a ride on Garnet’s ankle sometimes, and she could coast a little. She was like Pearl in that her wings were too small, but she never anticipated _using_ them.

 

“It’s not like we’re still at war,” Amethyst scoffed, and Pearl had a dozen reasons why she shouldn’t deliberately hurt herself despite that, and Amethyst tuned them all out.

 

Amethyst—and by extension, her entire family—had been bred for the Old War, but many of her sisters and cousins had been too young to see action. She herself hadn’t emerged until after Pearl and Garnet were born, the last geode to crack open in her quarry, and her sisters babied her for it. To counterpoint this, Amethyst got into as much trouble as possible, and once or twice, Pearl couldn’t stop Miss Agate from giving her a few lashings.

 

“I can’t believe you tempt her like that,” Pearl scolded, applying a cool, wet towel to Amethyst’s raw wings, and the little demon hissed in pain. “Garnet _warned_ you—“

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Amethyst cut in, rolling her eyes. “It’s not like it matters. Besides, the look on Hol’s face is worth it! She turns purple!”

 

“You shouldn’t be instigating fights with an officer of the law,” Pearl insisted, tugging Amethyst’s wing gently, urging her to spread it to its fullest. The little demon flailed where she sat on Garnet’s bed, not at all happy for the scolding. But she did like the attention.

 

“All my sisters do it, too, I don’t see you telling _them_ off,” she complained, and her stubby tail shook, displacing bloody water.

 

“ _They’re_ bigger than me,” Pearl said, as if that would have stopped her. Truth be told, Pearl didn’t know most of Amethyst’s sisters well enough to think she could get away with yelling at them. It just wasn’t done.

 

Amethyst was different in several of the ways that Garnet was, though. Pearl was growing into a prim and proper angel, just like her sisters, just like she _should_ have been; she’d cut her hair and started wearing her school uniform on the weekends. She wore a sash across her breast that was decorated in pins and patches to inform anyone who cared of her progress in the guardian angel training program outside of the academy. By rights, they shouldn’t be friends; Amethyst professed to detesting uptight, snooty, snobbish angels, and Pearl certainly was those things on some days.

 

Amethyst didn't have an argument there, and she didn’t have interest in being reminded that she was small and easy for Pearl to boss around. She kicked her hooves idly, pretended not to wince when Pearl cleaned her wounds, and pouted a little longer than usual.

 

Garnet appeared at the doorway with a fresh towel and a tea tray balanced on one hip. “Mom says you’re grounded,” she informed her friend, and Amethyst looked at once offended and confused.

 

“Your mom’s not the boss of me!”

 

Pearl rolled her eyes; Garnet smirked almost lazily. “And that attitude’s why you don’t get any cookies,” she said, setting the tea tray down.

 

“Amethyst, you know Miss Agate would’ve been _much_ worse if Sapphire hadn’t been there,” she scolded, and Amethyst huffed angrily, because Pearl wasn’t _wrong._

 

“I hate when you’re right!” Amethyst complained, and Pearl smiled so smugly that she didn’t look much like an angel at all. Amethyst _was_ grateful for the boysenberry tea, though, and threatened to drink the entire pot without sharing any with Pearl, explicitly because she knew she liked it.

 

What she didn’t know was that Ruby had slipped a sleeping drought in.

 

Garnet pat her on the head while Pearl finished up cleaning and bandaging her wings, and Amethyst very, very quickly succumbed to the moon dust in her drink. She yawned, pressed her face into Garnet’s stomach, and Garnet pulled her into her lap when she sat down on the bed. Already half asleep, Amethyst tried without dignity to scramble into her friend’s lap, and Pearl knew from experience _exactly_ what Garnet’s parents had done. She wisely didn’t claim any of the remaining tea for herself, instead slipping off of the bed to put away the bloodied towel in the laundry hamper. Amethyst murmured some kind of protest, and Garnet shushed her.

 

“We’ll be here when you wake up,” Garnet told her, and the small hands gripping her hips relaxed as much from relief as from Amethyst succumbing to sleep.


	7. Garnet/Pearl - The Future pt1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amethyst sleeps through all the important stuff.

It was different.

 

Pearl didn’t know how else to phrase it, or even if she should. The nights when Amethyst stayed too late to make it home before curfew were more numerous than not, and Pearl still snuck out to sleep in Garnet’s bed when she could. Her sisters chided her, but she wasn’t interested in Yellow or Blue’s opinions. Pearl confessed one night, after Amethyst was asleep, that she was afraid to turn out like them, but Garnet promised it would never come to be.

 

Pearl believed her.

 

The angel lay on her side, and it was too hot for Garnet to drape a wing over her, but their hands were entwined on the bed. Amethyst snored away merrily, wrapped in her own wings and a blanket. Garnet leaned in close to whisper things to Pearl, quietly enough that Amethyst didn’t wake up.

 

And the brush of Garnet’s breathing against her hair and gem was _profoundly_ distracting, but Pearl endured, because Garnet’s low voice was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard. Garnet told her in hushed tones about little inklings she had about their futures, about the coming school year and its trials, about the ridiculous green gremlin that Amethyst was bound to befriend.

 

“She won’t leave us, will she?” Pearl whispered earnestly, peeking up at her best friend through her fringe. In the darkness, it was hard to make out Garnet’s eyes. The Halfling smiled, though, and leaned in to nuzzle Pearl’s cheek.

 

“Not likely,” she murmured, “Not forever.”

 

Pearl’s fingers gripped hers, and she sighed at the feeling of Garnet’s eyelashes against her temple. Her next question caught in her throat, and from Garnet’s silence, Pearl was sure she knew it was coming.

 

“You won’t leave me, will you?”

 

Garnet shifted uncomfortably on her stomach to reach her right hand around, brushing her fingers through Pearl’s hair and skirting her gem. “Never. Not even if you leave me.”

 

Pearl’s eyes went wide; her grip on Garnet’s hand tightened. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t! Garnet—“

 

“Ssh,” she said soothingly, “You’ll wake Amethyst.”

 

It was Garnet’s fingers in her hair that calmed her more than anything. The brush of the gem in her palm against her ear was reassuring and intimate, and Pearl felt her heart clench in her chest. “Garnet, I’m _never_ leaving you,” she whispered earnestly, and Garnet knew in that moment that Pearl meant it, just as sure as she knew that the future—this future—was set in stone.

 

“You’ll have to, for him,” Garnet said, voice gentle and a little sad.

 

“ _Him_?” Pearl looked like she would cry. Part of her wanted to. Another part knew Amethyst would never, ever let her live it down, and that the little demon would surely wake.

 

She didn’t want to love _anyone_ enough to leave Garnet for them.

 

“Don’t cry, Pearl,” Garnet whispered, ghosting her fingers through Pearl’s hair and over her cheeks, and it was easy to pretend that she couldn’t feel her thundering heartbeat under her skin, just like it was easy to pretend she couldn’t see Pearl’s wings fluttering. Pearl was easy to wind up, and harder to wind down, but Garnet loved that about her. “I’ll still be here.”

 

“I’m not going,” Pearl blurted out, “I—Garnet, I _couldn’t_ , why would I ever—You’re too important to me!”

 

The Halfling swallowed hard, and despite the heat, she folded a wing over her best friend. This time, Pearl rushed forward from where she lay, winding her arms around Garnet’s midsection and pressing her face to her chest. Amethyst snored on, and Garnet had to push herself up on her knees to keep from crushing Pearl. Her tail flicked side to side.

 

There were potentials here, and Garnet knew that most outcomes were good. A confession stayed lodged in her throat for too long, the way it always seemed to, and Pearl’s wide blue eyes stared up at her, uncertain and worried. Garnet wondered when her best friend had gotten so small.

 

“He’s going to be conceived soon,” she choked out finally, and Pearl gripped her waist tightly. “Your assignment. It’s not gonna be up to you or me.”

 

Pearl stared, slack-jawed. There were oracles that couldn’t predict when a guardian angel would be assigned. Her training wouldn’t be complete in time. Garnet’s predictions weren’t like Sapphire’s, she could be _wrong_.

 

What tumbled from her lips, instead, was:

 

“I’ll never love him more than I love you.”


End file.
